


Don't Tell Your Mother

by kitbuckle



Series: I Just Wanna Play With You [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Dex gets a cat, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Granddad is Not Nice, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mild Angst, Multi, Mutual Pining, it's pretty mild but take care of yourselves, summer 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 03:31:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10069271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitbuckle/pseuds/kitbuckle
Summary: When Dex crawled under the porch, he thought he was looking for a raccoon, maybe a possum.Nursey gets Libby’s friend request on Snapchat a few days after he gets back to New York.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of We're Cool for the Summer, so much so that I would advise reading that first. Lots of OCs and character/relationship development. Enjoy!

When Dex crawled under the porch, he thought he was looking for a raccoon, maybe a possum.

Hell, when Dex crawled under the porch, he didn’t really want to be there, but Libby had heard noises, and she was convinced that whatever was under the porch had babies. And Libby didn’t ask for things, but she was as bad with small spaces as Kat was, so it isn’t something she could’ve done for herself. And she had been sneaking whatever was under the porch half her dinner for at least a week. And Dex was a sucker, apparently.

So here he was, flat on his belly, looking for this possum or raccoon so he could assure Libby about the alleged babies. Except, when he swept his flashlight beam over the inside of the crawlspace, he found a Frankencat nursing a litter of four kittens, maybe more, and the kittens were pretty damn fresh. Dex didn’t know a lot about kittens, but these still looked more like loaves than four-legged animals.

And their mom, fuck. The mom had major hair loss, part of an ear missing, and a distended, sickly gray eye. The other was yellow. She fixed it on Dex and hissed.

Dex backed out of the crawlspace. Libby was waiting for him, though she wasn’t there when he went in. Dex wasn’t surprised.

“You were right,” he said. “Mama cat and kittens.” Libby covered her mouth with her hands. Dex could see from her eyes that she was smiling. “We should get them out of there. The babies are tiny and the mom looks sick.”

It took an hour and four cousins, but they got a cardboard box, old towels, and a can of wet food. It took another hour and a half, and two more cousins, to get Frankencat into the box. She yowled until all five (five, not four) of her kittens were in the box with her.

Libby directed Dex to the only shelter in the county with a dedicated vet. Dex suspected she’d been volunteering when she asked for time to spend with friends, but he didn’t say anything, not even when the receptionist greeted Libby by name.

The kittens all had fleas, and two were barely moving, but the other three checked out. The vet mentioned that Frankencat would need surgery to remove the rotten eye, but not until the kittens started weaning.

“How long will that be?” Dex asked. Frankencat looked worse in the fluorescence of the vet’s office. She was covered in fleas and dirt, and scabs from the bacteria that made her fur fall out. That wasn’t even counting her eye. Her eye was just gross. Dex wouldn’t pet her (because _fleas_ ), but she pushed her head against his palm until he scratched her jawbones. Dex wanted to know what was going to happen to her.

“Three weeks at least,” said the vet. “We’ll treat her topically until then. Eye drops, antibiotics, flea baths, and so on. Libby can keep you updated.”

Back in the pick-up, Libby said, “I didn’t lie. I _was_ seeing my friends.” She cracked her knuckles, which she’d been doing less and less. Dex didn’t know about her life before the Allens, but he knew that knuckle-cracking was a sign she was nervous. “Animals are easier than people.”

“Yeah,” Dex said, “but making them think you’re doing one thing when you’re doing another isn’t cool. How do you even get out here?”

“Michaela Johnson,” Libby said, still not looking at Dex. “She’s volunteering for college apps or whatever, so she gives me a ride.”

“She a friend?”

Libby wrinkled her nose. “Ew, no. She’s a stuck-up snob. Always talking about how she’s going to an Ivy League. I mean, she does all her work, which is good I guess. I didn’t think she had the balls to clean up piss and shit. But she’s still a snob.”

“I used to think Nursey was a snob.” Dex didn’t know why he said it.

Libby snorted, but didn’t argue. She was on her phone, typing. “Let me know what happens to them, okay?” he said, meaning the cats.

“Uh-huh,” Libby said. “They won’t actually call her Frankencat, you know.”

Dex shrugged. Not his cat, not his business.

“Nursey says you misnamed it. Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster.”

“She created life,” Dex argued, then her words sunk in. “You’re texting Nursey?”

“Snapchat,” said Libby. “He thinks the team should change your nickname to Catman.”

“You snapped this whole thing?”

“Well, yeah. This makes almost as good a story as Nursey’s visit.”

-

Nursey gets Libby’s friend request on Snapchat a few days after he gets back to New York. Most of her snaps are just pics, no captions. She reminds Nursey a bit of Jack, more comfortable with images than words. Her snap stories are mostly about her family, like Kat’s birthday. The snaps direct to Nursey are more colorful. But not like, literally. One time she sends Nursey a snap of Dex and Kat—flushed, sweaty, obviously just back from a run—with the timestamp 7:45 and the caption “jocks are so weird”.

Nursey snaps back, because he’s bored and no one on the team uses Snapchat except Lardo and Shitty. Nursey couldn’t snap Shitty or Lardo a pic of his laptop screen, which he’s using to watch old episodes of _Pit Bulls & Parolees_, with the caption “dream job,” and get the desired response.

(Libby sends back a pic of a pit bull in a shelter cage looking up at the camera beseechingly, captioned “local girl convicted of theft”.)

He also gets lots of snaps of Dex from lots of different angles. Most of those don’t have captions. Dex nodding off on the couch, Dex glaring at his sunburn, Dex fishing on the pier, Dex on a roof with Robbie and others doing a patch after a storm. Nursey doesn’t know why Libby sends those, and doesn’t ask, but it’s nice.

He and Dex text, obviously, but Dex has way less downtime to do it, so it’s mostly Nursey texting into the void. It’s nice to see his face.

Then comes the day that Libby’s snap story is the Frankencat saga. The first one is Dex’s legs sticking out from under the porch and the caption “we heard a noise”. It makes Nursey laugh.

The second snap is a blurry one of Dex on his knees, captioned “he says it’s kittens!” Libby never uses punctuation, so the exclamation point is a big deal. The next half-dozen or so are Libby and Dex gathering supplies (“cousin army mobilized”).

It’s the video of Dex finally extracting the mama cat from under the porch that nearly kills Nursey dead. The cat has wicked hair loss, a torn ear on one side and a rotting eye on the other, but Dex is gentle with her. He talks gently to her. He says, “there you go, mama, good girl,” as he sets her in the box. Nursey can see red lines on his hands where the cat must’ve got him, but he’s not angry at her.

Next snap: a close-up pic of the cat, captioned “he’s been calling her Frankencat”.

Next snap: Dex sitting by the box, petting Frankencat, captioned “she doesn’t like anyone else”.

Next snaps: an Allen cousin handing kitten after kitten to Dex, who returns them to Frankencat. There are enough pics to notice that Frankencat’s good eye is yellow, and her black fur might have orange patches under the skin disease and fleas and dirt. The last one is of Dex in a car. His head’s turned away from the camera, exposing the sharp corner of his jaw. Libby’s caption: “the hero we deserve”.

Nursey lies on the floor to digest this. He doesn’t think he does a good job. Pablo whines at him and licks his face. He doesn’t move until Dex texts him.

_You miss me so much you creep on my sister?_

Nursey smiles. _she’s chill. nice cat_.

_It might’ve given me tetanus._

_or that disease that makes u luv cats_

_That’s not a thing._

_just wait, u’ll have a cat by the end of the summer_

-

Libby told Dex they named the mama cat Frankie. Dex thought it was a good name. He started driving her to the shelter when he could. He always asked about Frankie. Libby would text him photos of Frankie and the kittens when she worked with them. Frankie’s hair started to grow back, mostly black, with pretty orange patches on her chin, throat, hind foot.

Dex had other stuff going on. With Nursey back in New York, Dex worked the same hours on the boat that Les did. He put in more hours at Mark’s shop. He made Bitty’s garlic honey chicken when it was his turn to cook. The Samwell scholarship didn’t cover summer classes, so nothing he could there, but he went to the library and checked out books on coding and computer repair.

One day in July, Aunt Millie called the house and asked Dex to look at Meemaw’s computer. She was getting a lot of spam emails. Dex unsubscribed from as many lists as he could and toyed with the settings on her spam folder. Meemaw, Martha’s mother, said, “Thank you, sugar,” and gave him a lemon pound cake to take home.

Somehow, Granddad got wind of it, and summoned Dex to look at his and Gram’s computer. There didn’t seem to be a real reason, other than Granddad had heard Dex looked at Meemaw’s and felt he deserved the same service.

“Don’t mind him, dear,” Gram said when he got there. “I have to run to the store, but I’ll be right back.”

Granddad treated Dex like Dex was a hired handyman; showed Dex to the office like he’d never been in the house, stood with hands on hips in the door while Dex worked like Dex was a shady plumber. Granddad didn’t trust things he couldn’t fix himself.

“That friend of yours,” Granddad said. “What’s his name?”

“Derek Nurse,” Dex said. “The team calls him Nursey.”

“What is he?”

Dex flinched, but kept typing. Granddad was a miserable old cuss. Everybody knew it. Nobody challenged it. “What do you mean?”

“Where are his parents from?”

Dex took a breath. “His mom’s from Pakistan. His dad is black and Native American.”

“And he’s a city boy? Went to some fancy private school?”

“ _I_ go to a private school,” Dex said. He wasn’t ashamed of it anymore.

Granddad snorted. “Where you went to high school says more about you.”

Dex frowned. The computer was old, just barely on the modern side of dial-up, so there wasn’t much he could do. Gram and Granddad still used plastic Polaroid cameras, for Pete’s sake. There were a few minor viruses, but those were easily fixable. Dex focused on them to stop himself from saying _How would you know? You never went to college._

“He one of them queers?” Granddad asked.

Dex’s fingers froze. He felt like his heart stopped. “What.”

“That Nurse kid. I’m not dumb, I know what kinda place Samwell is. He giving you wrong ideas?”

“Nursey is one of my best friends,” Dex said. “So what if he’s straight or not?”

Granddad frowned, and his whole face folded up like a bulldog’s. “They shouldn’t allow those pervs in the locker room. It’s not fair on regular guys.”

“I can think of at least two, maybe four guys right off the top of my head on the team who aren’t straight,” Dex said. Bitty, Nursey, probably Holster and Ransom. Who the fuck knew about Ollie and Wicks, honestly. “There’s never been a problem, not once. They’re my team, my friends. And what if I wasn’t straight, huh?” Dex asked, feeling dangerous. He couldn’t stop. “What if I wanted to bring a guy home instead of a girl? What’s the big deal?”

He turned back to the computer. He’d said the words, but he couldn’t watch Granddad’s face. Computers and code didn’t give a shit what you were. Viruses had no opinion about your crush on your d-man. Because, honestly, Dex couldn’t help but picture how it would be if Nursey came to Maine as Dex’s boyfriend, instead of his teammate.

“Is that why you brought that Nurse kid here?” Granddad asked, his tone accusing. “If Ed and Martha had been able to have kids of their own—”

Dex grabbed his stuff and walked out of the office. There was only static in his head. This was why the adults tried not to leave the grandkids alone with Granddad. This is what happened. Robbie, as the oldest of them all, had had the roughest time, and still defended Granddad the most.

Down the street, up the porch steps, into the house. Libby was on the couch. Dex couldn’t face her. Up the stairs, into his room. He wanted the Haus. He wanted to open his window and crawl out and be on the Reading Room. Nursey and Lardo would be there, sharing a joint. They’d offer it to him. He’d decline, but they’d lean into him. Nursey would say stupid shit and Lardo would chirp him. Holster would bellow from somewhere inside. The smell of one of Bitty’s pies—cherry, Dex decided—would drift up to them.

Dex sat down between his beds and held his head in his hands.

His bedroom door opened. Someone came in.

“Will?” It was Libby.

Dex couldn’t answer her. He was afraid of what would come out of his mouth if he did. Sobs, probably.

“Are you okay?”

Dex shook his head. He didn’t want her to think he was ignoring her.

Libby came closer and knelt. “Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked. She sounded unsure. “Or I can call Ma?”

Dex shook his head again. He’d definitely break down if he talked to Ma. She had more important things to worry about.

“Do you wanna come to the shelter with me today?” Libby asked. “Check on Frankie and the kittens?”

Dex hesitated, wondered if he could be that indulgent. Eventually, he decided he didn’t care, and nodded.

-

Nursey’s sitting down to dinner when he gets the Snapchat notification. Libby’s just updated her snap story. Ammi and Mama are still flirting over the salad in the kitchen, so Nursey opens the app.

The video is of Dex in some vet office. He’s holding Frankencat, who still has a gross eye, but who is rubbing the uninjured side of her face against Dex’s neck. Her purring is audible. Dex is rubbing his chin against her head and trying not to giggle. “CATMAN,” proclaims the caption.

“She remembers you!” That’s Libby. Dex looks up at the camera, grinning, amber eyes bright and happy and open. The video ends.

Nursey tips forward and lets his head thunk against the edge of the table.

“ _Mijo_?” Mama asks.

Nursey groans.

“Everything all right?” asks Ammi.

“There’s a boy,” Nursey says. It comes out like a whine. A pouting, plaintive, pathetic whine. “And a cat.”

“Ah,” says Ammi. She rubs his back. “I’m sorry, baby. Take as long as you need.”

Nursey loves his moms, he really does.

-

They’d named Frankie’s kittens after other classic monsters: Igor, Mummy, Phantom, Edward and Jacob. (“They’re a vampire and a werewolf, Will. Jeez, have you never _heard_ of Twilight?”) Mummy had stripes, and Jacob had brown fur, but none of the others looked like their names. Libby didn’t seem concerned.

“Their adopters will probably name them something different,” she said. “You know, Edward and Jacob weren’t even with the litter we brought in.”

Dex frowned, because that didn’t make any sense. Why were they with Frankie’s litter if they weren’t Frankie’s kittens?

Libby said, “Two of Frankie’s kittens had infections and died the day after we found them.” She didn’t look Dex in the eyes, but he sensed that was more for her than for him. “Someone left Edward in Jacob in a box on the street. Don’t know what happened to their mom, or if they had any littermates. Frankie was our only nursing mom, and she kind of adopted them.” Libby smiled at Dex, small but sure. “They’re as good as hers now.”

Dex didn’t know if Libby was observant, psychic, or if a whole lot of timing lined up in just the right way, but he felt tingly and warm. He turned to the kittens. Kittens weren’t complicated. Edward and Jacob probably didn’t even know Frankie hadn’t given birth to them, and would never know, and would never need to know.

The kittens were five or six weeks old now. Libby explained how they needed frequent handling to be properly socialized. The shelter workers had already started the weaning process, so Frankie got her own cage. Dex had seen her before Libby brought out the kittens. Her fleas were gone, and her hair was growing back in. Only her eye was left to deal with, and it looked a lot less oozy than Dex remembered, so he figured that was good.

Libby gave Dex a handful of kitten toys and told him to keep the kittens entertained while she cleaned the cages. They hadn’t completely mastered walking yet, but they meowed and tottered after the feathers and climbed all over Dex. They reminded him of his cousins, but quieter and easier to pick up if they got in trouble.

The vet came in right as the kittens were starting to tire. “Libby’s brother? You’re the one who brought Frankie in.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We just finished her eye surgery,” said the vet. “Could you put the kittens to bed and sit with Frankie while she comes out of anesthesia? We’re short a tech today. You can’t mess it up, I promise.”

Dex was shocked, but hurried to do as she asked. The kittens were ready to be picked up and put away, thankfully. Little Igor, the runt of the litter, was asleep as soon as Dex set him down in the cage.

Frankie was lying on her side, wrapped in a fleece blanket. She had two scars—a small one where her eye had been, stretching her skin across the empty socket, and a slightly longer one on her belly. They’d probably spayed her while she was out. She looked like she was getting better, even unconscious and newly stitched, with her tongue lolling out of her mouth.

It took a while for her to wake up. Dex stroked her nose and forehead with a finger. He didn’t want to hurt her. He’d gotten stitches before, so he figured the area around her eye would be tender. She had a tiny patch of white hair right on top of her pink nose.

“You’re such a good ma,” he said. “I’m sorry about the two you lost, but you’re doing real good with Edward and Jacob. The folks here are gonna find them all good homes, don’t worry.”

Dex talked to her, low and slow, until her eyes opened and her legs started twitching. Frankie batted Dex’s wrist, so he stopped petting her, but then she batted him again. She kept her paw on his arm while he stroked the back of her skull. It reminded him of holding Kat’s hand in the hospital, but not in a bad way.

-

The worst thing about Pablo is that Nursey can’t take her to Samwell. She’s a registered comfort animal, so the school could deal, but it wouldn’t be fair to her. Nursey’s routine is fucked to hell, barely has room for homework and a social life, let alone the time needed to take care of another living soul. Not to mention travel really depresses her. Nursey can tell. He knows the feeling.

So he gets in as much Pablo Time as he can when he’s home on breaks. He only goes to cafes and bookstores that allow dogs inside. He runs with her in Central Park at least once a day, lets her off leash when he can. He makes her the star of his Instagram and Snapchat posts. He takes her to the groomer for haircuts, but he bathes her himself, in his bathroom. If his moms would let him eat meals with Pablo on his lap, he’d do it.

This means he’s with Pablo, lounging in the sun with Langston Hughes and the Central Park castle in sight, when he gets a direct snap from Libby. There are three in quick succession.

Dex in the living room, in the armchair, staring out the window. Caption: _pining_.

The second picture is similar. The caption makes Nursey’s breath hitch. _for a cat? girl? boy?_

In the final pic, Libby either got Dex’s attention or he noticed her on his own, because he’s flicking her off. He’s got his thinking face on, frowny but softer than anger. _the world may never know_.

Nursey sighs deeply, locks his phone, and plays with Pablo’s fur. “This is the least chill thing that’s ever happened to me,” he tells her.

Pablo sighs.

“Brah, I know. He’s so weird. He’s chill about really cool shit, like. Just fucking fixing everything in the Haus. Oven, dryer, windows, roofs—doesn’t matter what it is, he’s so fucking _confident_. But he plays like someone’s life is on the line. Which, like, he’s at Samwell on a hockey ride, so I get that association, but. It’s a game, you know?” Even as he says it—and Nursey’s been saying it since he was in peewee—he knows he’s not telling the truth anymore. “I mean, it is a game, but. The team makes it more than that.” The team makes Nursey want to work harder, be better, push himself further. Dex makes him feel that way, too.

“It kinda sucked at first,” he tells Pablo. She turns her head to look at him, doggy eyebrows twitching up and down. “He like, never backs down, brah.” Until he does. Until Dex sees that there’s another point of view, equally valid as his own. Until he knows that pushing the issue will cause more harm than good. Nursey snorts at his past self. “I’ll admit, I never thought I’d be the one who’s worldview needed challenging.”

Which was so stupid, honestly. Pablo knows it, too. She sits up, puts her back to him.

“Hey,” Nursey protests. “I worked on it. Still am. It’s not all deep shit, either. He’s fun to be around.” Fun to chirp, fun to be chirped by, fun to knock off-kilter, but never so hard that Dex goes tumbling down.

“He and C are my best friends,” he says, quiet and private, just him and Pablo. Spence is his oldest friend, practically his brother, but it’s different with them. Pablo looks over her shoulder at him. “Best human friends,” he corrects. She leans over and licks his cheek.

“Love you too, brah,” Nursey says, still quiet. Dex and Chowder are his best friends. Dex is his partner, on the ice and off. Chowder balances them. They protect each other, chirp each other. They have each other’s backs. _That’s enough_ , Nursey tells himself sternly. _That’s enough for you. It’s more than you had before. You don’t need more from him. It’s chill_.

Nursey picks up Langston with one hand and scritches Pablo with the other. His phone lies in the grass, screen down. It’s a beautiful summer day in Central Park. Nursey has a school, team, moms, and friends he loves. It’s enough.

-

No matter what Dex did, it wasn’t enough. That’s how it felt, anyway. Libby kept secrets. Kat outgrew prostheses. Robbie held hard onto other people’s opinions just for something to hold, and Ed and Martha were always tired. Dex was always tired. So much was out of his control.

That must be why he did it. He had no other explanation.

Ed and Martha hadn’t had a pet in the house since old Pepper died, shortly after Dex and Kat arrived. They still had Pepper’s collar, leash, and favorite toys in a box at the very top of the linen closet, but that wasn’t what Dex needed. He asked around. The cousins produced a litter box, food and water bowls, felt mice with catnip inside, advice about which litter and which food to get. Dex acquired a new item every time Libby said a kitten had been adopted. He researched adoption fees.

One day late in July, he slipped Libby a twenty-dollar bill with a simple cat face drawn in one corner. “Don’t tell Ma,” he told her.

And thank God Robbie had moved into the attic over the garage, honestly, because otherwise they’d never have gotten away with it. Dex went to pick up Libby one day—a day when their parents would both be working late—and she came out of the shelter with a cat carrier. With Frankie. Dex’s heart unclenched when he saw them.

They put the carrier in Dex’s room, and the litter box in the bathroom he shared with Libby and Kat. Kat, who was home when they tried to sneak Frankie upstairs. Kat, whose idea it was to put the litter box in the bathroom. Kat, who was not enthusiastic about Frankie, but smiled at Dex and Libby when they played with her.

“So I’m assuming this is an ‘ask for forgiveness, not permission’ situation,” she said.

Dex held Frankie like a baby while Libby scratched Frankie’s chin. “Yep,” he said. Frankie licked Libby’s fingers.

“You’re going to spoil the fuck out of that cat, aren’t you?” Libby grinned. Dex shrugged. “You had to have her that bad?” Kat asked.

“All her kittens have been adopted,” Libby said. She didn’t look up from Frankie. “Black cats are the least likely to get adopted, especially older ones that still kinda look gross.” Which was fair. Frankie’s coat still hadn’t grown back all the way. Her eye had healed, but it was still gone. Half of the opposite ear was still gone. If Dex hadn’t seen her that first day, and hadn’t known how much she’d healed, he would’ve assumed she was diseased.

“People are stupid,” he said. Frankie was a great cat. Dex wouldn’t risk her getting adopted by the wrong person or worse, put to sleep, just because her worth wasn’t immediately obvious to most people.

Frankie met his eyes with her yellow one. She lifted her right front paw, the one with the orange toes, and rested it on his nose.

“Thank you,” Dex said. “I’m glad you agree.”

Frankie craned upward and licked his chin, then relaxed back into his arms.

“That was so cute I’m gonna vom,” Kat said. Libby had her phone out and a wicked little smile on her face.

“That’s going on Snapchat, isn’t it,” said Dex.

Libby looked at him, her expression all _oh, please_. “Will. Willie. My brother. It’s going _everywhere_.”

Dex struggled with himself, then sighed. “We’re lucky that you’re the only one on social media in this family.”

“Speak for yourself, Billiam,” Kat said. She was on her phone too, now. “I’m liking and sharing the shit out of this.”

Dex should feel his chest clench up again at that. He used to, whenever someone posted a photo of him online. He always winced at the thought of his hair and his ears and his awkward fucking face preserved on the Internet forever. There was no telling how deep social workers or foster parents or potential employers would search. There was no telling what unsavory conclusions they could come to about him, about his intelligence or social skills or upbringing. The paranoia had caught him in middle school and kept a fierce grip on him.

It was a picture of him and Frankie, though. And most people would focus on Frankie, not him. The Internet liked cats doing cute shit. The clench didn’t come. Dex gave into impulse and nuzzled Frankie’s forehead with his nose. Libby’s phone camera made its little noise again, and Dex didn’t care. Frankie purred.

-

The pics were everywhere. Nursey couldn’t escape them. Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook—and then, the SMH group chat. Twitter, once Bitty got hold of them.

Libby’s original snap story begins with a picture of Frankie through the door of a pet carrier (captioned ‘JAILBREAK’) and then there’s a series of Frankie and Dex in Dex’s bedroom. Frankie’s a shorthair, but her fur hasn’t fully grown back yet, showing pale skin and wrinkles. Her one eye is nearly the same color as Dex’s. Her orange patches almost exactly the color of his hair. Her face is the slit-eyed smile of a trusting cat. Dex’s face is soft, almost meditative, but intense deep in his eyes.

Libby snaps the litter box in the bathroom they share with Kat (“don’t tell ma”). She snaps Frankie investigating Kat, while Kat sits very still on the bed Nursey slept on, and then Frankie very deliberately sitting out of Kat’s reach (“area cat only likes two people”). She snaps Frankie laying an orange paw on Dex’s nose (“I dub thee Catman”) and Dex nuzzling Frankie’s forehead (“thanks boo”). Kat’s Insta pic is one of Frankie perched on Dex’s impossibly broad shoulders, both of them looking over their shoulders at the camera. With the twist of Dex’s spine and the cling of his tee and the way the light falls, the muscles of Dex’s back are so stark he might as well be shirtless. Dex and Frankie’s expressions of low-level grumpiness are nearly identical. That’s when Nursey knows.

Dex fucking loves this cat.

Nursey is going out of his fucking mind.

Spence texts after Nursey has liked a careful selection of the posts (and saved all the pics to his phone): _You, me, Pablo, Cafe Beit tomorrow at 2pm_.

Nursey texts back, _k_. He knows what Spence is going to say, but he pretends he doesn’t, even to himself. He very deliberately thinks, _Just bros hanging out. Probably gonna tell me things with Prez are official. Nbd_.

Spence is already there when Nursey and Pablo roll up, Pablo wriggling all over in delight at seeing an old bud. “Hey, pretty,” Spence says to Pablo. They scrub at her ears and chest, accepting kisses graciously. “Hey, fugly,” Spence says to Nursey.

“Sup,” Nursey says, grinning. He has so few friends who he’s this level of comfortable with. With whom he’s at this level of comfort. Whatever. “You order yet?”

“Just drinks,” says Spence. “Hope you still like chai.”

“Dude,” Nursey says. It’s Cafe Beit. The two of them _always_ get chai. Except for when they get espresso—but they only get espresso in winter. Or if they’re on their way to somewhere, when they get drip to go. It’s a system.

“Well, I didn’t know for sure,” Spence says daintily. “I don’t assume you tell me _everything_ , now that we’re not roommates.”

Which is Spence-lingo for _I found you out, dumbass_. Shit fucking dammit, they know him too well. The barista calls Spence’s name. Spence slides out of their seat with a sly look. Nursey contemplates his doom. Spence returns with two chais.

“How are you and gluten getting along?” Nursey asks, thinking about distraction and avocado toast.

“As well as my parents,” says Spence, which is Spence-lingo for _civil divorce_ , which is Spence-sublingo for _better off without each other_. Good thing Cafe Beit is gluten-free and vegan friendly. “How are you and Dex getting along?”

“Good,” Nursey says, because it’s the truth.

“Uh-huh,” Spence says. “How was Maine?” Between Spence’s family trips and internship, Nursey hasn’t really talked to them since he got back.

“Really good,” Nursey says. “Dex’s family was like, mad welcoming. Kept pretty busy, actually. Lobsters are creepy little fuckers, but being out on the water was chill. His sisters are rad. And his dad’s big bro has been with this dude for like, twenty-plus years, married for two. Made me want to read Gary Snyder.”

Spence _oohs_ , because Nursey literally doesn’t read white poets unless he feels the urge deep down in his soul.

“How many of the cat photos did you save to your phone,” Spence not-asks.

Nursey’s thinking about Les and Mark, wanting something like that for himself, caught off-guard enough to answer, “All of them.” As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he puts his elbows on the table and his face in his hands. He hears Spence chuckle.

“Called it,” Spence says.

“You did not.”

“I saw you two at Cush’s party, and I thought to myself, ‘self’—”

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ.”

“—‘Derek Malik Nurse now bears the same countenance with which he once beheld the beauteous Elliot Cushing and, flatteringly, yourself!’”

Nursey knocks off his beanie, runs a hand through his hair. “You literally thought that?”

“I _literally_ thought that,” Spence says.

“Lotta classes for that Drama major this year, huh.”

“Shush,” says Spence, flapping their hand dismissively. Their bangles and striped tank top give them the look of like, sophisticated matriarchal wisdom. “You’re hot for your d-man. Again.”

“Unchill, dude,” Nursey says. What he feels now is bigger than what he felt for Spence, when he felt like that for Spence. What he feels now is bumping up against the boundaries of his body, threatening to make his skin stretch and tingle with the effort of keeping it in. “You’re probs just seeing hearteyes everywhere because the ones you have for Prez are so big.”

Spence rolls their eyes, but still blushes.

“Heart-colored glasses,” Nursey says, because he thinks he’s clever.

“Gross,” Spence says, because they take Nursey’s metaphors literally to keep him humble.

They both drink their chai, collect their words. Spence collects theirs first.

“He makes me happy,” they say. “And yeah, I want to see you happy. But also, you’re like, embarrassingly into him. Ell and Sky and I have been gossiping about it since he defended your honor at Cush’s party.”

“I seriously doubt—”

“Hush,” Spence says. “Did he tell you what Crowns was saying?”

It hadn’t seemed necessary. Nursey knew what Crowns was like. “No.”

“Well, Quentin told me.”

“ _Quentin_?”

Spence glares at him. “He didn’t start shit until Crowns started talking about you.”

Nursey shrugs, looks into his chai. Pablo crawls between his feet and licks his ankle. Dex is a d-man. He has a protective streak the width of a runway at JFK. If he’s fighting on Nursey’s behalf, it’s just because they’re friends, teammates, and partners on the ice. “You’d have done the same.”

Spence considers. “I would have,” they say, “but I wouldn’t have done as well as your boy.”

“ _Spence_ ,” Nursey says.

“You’re usually much better about talking about your feelings. You must really like him.”

“If I loved him less, I could talk about it more,” Nursey quotes. Immediately, he picks up Pablo and pretends to nuzzle her fur so he can hide.

“Oh, babe,” Spence says. They put their hand over Nursey’s and squeeze. “You are so fucked.”

Nursey’s face feels hot, and he knows Spence can’t see him blushing, but he knows that he is and that makes his face feel hotter. He whines, “I knoooow,” into Pablo’s shoulder.

He hears Spence settle back in their chair. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” Spence says, “deets, brah.”

Nursey aches, because there are no deets, none other than Nursey’s crush and _Dex_. The resolution to say nothing, do nothing. The shiver in his marrow that wants August here, now, bringing with it Dex every day, bringing them to the place where they only communicate in motion and instinct and ah, there’s the poem.

-

Frankie tolerated Kat, but she only really _liked_ Dex and Libby, and she scurried to hide when anyone else came home. That was the only reason they were able to keep her a secret for two whole weeks. Two whole weeks of Frankie on the windowsill, on Dex’s chest or shoulders, purring, watching, sitting like a sphinx. Two whole weeks of discreetly changing the litter box and vacuuming black hair when Ma and Dad and Robbie weren’t home.

As the third week—the start of August, Dex’s last full week at home—began, anxiety crept in. Dex started catastrophizing about leaving for Samwell and getting a tearful call from Libby that they’d found Frankie and sent her back.

One day, Kat came into his room. Dex had just woken up from his post-work nap. Frankie was sprawled on her side, using his arm as a headrest, her delicate ribs rising, falling, rising. Dex was usually up right after he woke up, but he didn’t want to disturb her. Kat sat on the floor between the twin beds.

“She’ll be here when you get back,” Kat said. She was making a promise, not chirping. Dex raised an eyebrow at her. They never made promises they couldn’t keep, especially not to each other. Never. Kat read this in his face. “She will,” she said.

So Kat thought she could keep this promise. Something big and scary, like hope, ballooned in Dex’s chest. “How can you be sure?” he asked.

“She’s good for you,” Kat said. “She’s good for Libby. Ma and Dad won’t take that away.”

Those were all true statements. Ed and Martha hadn’t told Kat she couldn’t do sports because of her leg. They hadn’t told Dex he couldn’t do hockey because it cost too much. They hadn’t ever forced them to go to school on the anniversary of the crash. They’d listened when Dex said the therapy wasn’t working. But all that was one thing. Comfort animals—that was Nursey shit, Samwell shit. Dex didn’t lie to himself about what Frankie was doing for him and Libby, but he couldn’t expect his parents and Robbie to get it.

“What if they don’t get it?”

Kat gave him a look: _I love you but you’re stupid_. “Oh, sure, why would our caring and empathetic parents understand caring about a pet?”

Dex felt silly when she laid it out like that, but. “Doesn’t make the anxiety go away,” he said.

“I know,” Kat said. “That’s why you have me.”

Frankie grumbled, stood, and turned. She lay back down with her nose in Dex’s armpit and her back to Kat.

“Fuck you too,” Kat said, but she was smiling.

Everyone was scheduled to be home for dinner that night. It was Libby’s turn to cook. Kat hovered, pretending to make a salad, just in case Libby needed her. Dex sat in the den, trying to remember how to play _Blackbird_ on his old guitar. Summer days were longer in Maine than in Samwell, so Frankie had her pick of sunny patches of carpet. Dex hadn’t shut her in his room today. Kat and Libby had noticed, but hadn’t said anything yet. _Blackbird_ was a tough one. Dex had to give it all his focus. It helped keep from thinking about what would happen when everyone came home.

Ed was first home. He came in from the garage and headed for the fridge, like always. “Beer, Will?” he asked.

“No thanks,” Dex said.

Ed came back in. He sighed, “All right,” as he sat in his chair, like always. He took a sip of his Bud and _ahh_ ed sharply, like always. He asked, “Where’s the clicker?”

The clicker was in the middle of the coffee table. Frankie was on the coffee table, lazily flicking her tail. Dex watched Ed’s eyes catch on her. Ed’s expression didn’t change. He leaned forward. Dex tried to remember how to breathe. If there was any noise in the house beyond his hammering fucking heart, Dex couldn’t hear it. Ed’s fingers closed around the clicker. Ed settled back in his chair. “The Sox playing today?”

Dex tried not to gasp for breath. “They’re playing the Rays,” Kat said, shouting a little to be heard from the kitchen.

Dad set the TV to the game and put it on low. Dex, for lack of any better ideas, went back to _Blackbird_. At commercial, Dad said, “Coming along nicely there, Will,” and Dex nodded.

Not long after, they heard the knob on the front door turn, and Dad got up from his chair. Ma came in. “Robbie’s cleaning up for supper,” she said. She kissed the top of Dex’s head. “Nice to see you’ve stopped hiding the cat, dear.”

“I was hoping you knew about that,” Dad said. He came back from the kitchen with a fresh Bud. He gave it to Ma and kissed her cheek.

“I know everything,” Ma said. Under the normal amount of tired in her expression, Dex saw she was smug.

“The cousins,” Libby said darkly. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen. Her frilly gingham apron did not make her look less fierce.

“Be sweet, Libby,” Ma said. “It only takes one smarty to notice when their old litter box is missing.”

Dex had stopped picking at _Blackbird_. Frankie lifted her head and looked at him. Dex went back to the song, and Frankie went back to dozing. Hopefully this would all get sorted out without his input.

Then Robbie trooped in from the garage. “Okay, McCartney,” he said. “I can hear you all the way up in my room.” He stopped dead right behind the couch. “Why is there a cat on the table?”

“Will found her under the porch a couple months back,” Ma said.

“Will’s had a cat for _months_?”

Kat snorted. She’d come up behind Libby in the kitchen doorway. “She’s been at the shelter, Robbs. All her kittens got adopted, but she didn’t.”

“So, what, that means she’s our problem?”

“Libby likes her,” Dex said. “So do I. She’s a good cat.”

“Just don’t try to pet her,” Kat said. “She only likes Libby and Will.”

“Don’t worry,” Robbie muttered. He headed for the kitchen and his own bottle of Bud.

Dad settled back in his chair, Ma on the end of the couch closest to him. “Keep playing, hon,” she said. “Maybe you’ll drown out Dad’s grumbling when the Sox lose.”

“Against the Rays?” Dad asked, incredulous. “You have got to be sh—joking.”

Libby rolled her eyes and went back in the kitchen. “You can say ‘shitting me,’ we don’t care,” she said. Dad choked on his beer. Dex hid his grin—poorly, he knew—and started playing again. Frankie hauled herself to her feet. She crouched, wiggling her little butt and everything, and leaped onto the arm of Dex’s chair. She climbed and settled across Dex’s shoulders, cradled between him and the back of the chair. Someone—Dex didn’t look up in time to see—took a picture.

-

_My parents let me keep her._

Nursey gets the text at ten—early in the night for him, but his moms are both in bed.

_the cat?_

_What are you, allergic to capital letters?_

That’s a yes, then. Nursey is confused, but also supes happy for Dex.

_cant believe u found a cat as devastatingly handsome as u. still calling her Frankencat?_

_Fuck you, my cat could win pageants. Frankie._

Nursey wants to squirm like a teenager with his first crush, because how is this grumpy lobster-man so fucking _cute_?

_Did Libby tell you the shelter named her kittens after monsters? Like, Mummy and Phantom and shit?_

_wtf no  
what a betrayal_

_Two of her kittens died. There were these two that the shelter found in a box the day after we brought Frankie in. Frankie adopted them._

Nursey is calling Dex before he knows he made the decision to do so.

“I have _seen_ you ignore calls from people you were texting,” Dex answers.

“Do you think Frankie and Pablo would get along?” Nursey asks.

There’s a sound like Dex snorted, or laughed, or something. “That sounds like the name of one of those shit indie duos you like.”

_Frankie and Pablo_. Yeah, Nursey could see that. “Pablo used to love cats, but one got her pretty good on her nose while she was in the shelter. Not the cat’s fault, it was literally feral, probably had dogs come at it a bunch, but. Pablo’s cautious about cats.”

“Take a breath, Nurse,” Dex says. His tone is only a little chirpy. Nursey can picture his frown perfectly, his unimpressed eyes. “I don’t know how Frankie is with dogs. She was under the porch, then at the shelter, then in the house.”

Nursey takes a big, chest-stretching breath. “She’s probably not a big fan of them,” he says. “You’ve got, what, mostly hunting breeds and pit bulls up there?”

Dex says, “Um…”

“Brah,” Nursey says. “No shade. Libby snaps the little dudes at her work. Can’t picture Mainers with lapdogs, you know?”

Dex huffs. Nursey interprets it as agreement.

“So Frankie probably tangled with bigger dogs on the street,” Nursey says, “and bigger dogs are more likely to see cats as food.”

“Pablo’s not a big dog,” Dex says. “Why are we even talking about this?”

Nursey shrugs, though he knows Dex can’t see it. “It would be rad if they got along. And I missed your ‘rageous accent.”

“Yeah, well, I was actually in the middle of something.” Dex doesn’t sound too annoyed though, not like he does when Nursey interrupts his homework.

“What?”

Dex is quiet for just a moment longer than normal. “I have a guitar at home,” he says.

Nursey can feel his smile uncurling. “’Swawesome, brah. What music soothes the savage D?”

“Was that a defenseman joke or a dick joke?”

“Both. Whatcha working on?”

Dex sighs deeply. “ _Blackbird_.”

Nursey digs his head back into his pillows. He literally can’t deal. “What happened to classic rock and campfire songs?”

“I wanted a challenge,” Dex says. “I used to know it.”

If Nursey asks Dex to play it, Dex won’t. That’s how their chirping works, even if they’re lying. That’s how their friendship works. And it does work, in general, but it won’t work right now.

“You cool to just chill for a bit?” Nursey asks. He doesn’t want to hang up. He doesn’t want to be alone with his head. “I won’t bug you.”

Dex is quiet. “You’re not gonna chirp me?”

Nursey knows he can’t promise that. “Not about your playing,” he says. “Course, there’s so much other material to work with.”

“Pot, kettle,” says Dex. “Go write a poem or something.”

Nursey works out at first. It was a leg day at the gym, so he does idle, low-weight reps with the dumbbells he keeps in his room—biceps, triceps, traps. Push-ups. Not so many that he starts to sweat, not so vigorously that he can’t hear Dex through the phone. He’s not McCartney, but he’s better than he probably thinks he is. Nursey knows this because Dex is a perfectionist. He can hear Dex muttering to himself when he stumbles.

With his blood pumping lightly and his arms warm, Nursey reaches for his notebook and a ballpoint pen. It feels good, watching the tip leave looping trails that turn into words, turn into lines. _I have spent too much time / picking other people’s scabby opinions / off my skin._ That’s a good beginning. It’s true. Nursey scribbles on, phrases that have been bouncing around in his head like Pong, quotes (“If music be the food of love, play on”), a string of words and names ( _Dex Dexy Sexy Dexy William J. Poindexter Willie Billy Billiam Bill Billy Goat_ ). He doesn’t pay attention to rhyme, rhythm, meter. That’s what revision is for. Eventually, he gets to a question: _Why are you here?_ And stops.

Through the phone, he hears, “ _All your life…you were only waiting for this moment to arrive_.”

Dex is singing, soft, the same way he mutters to himself. The time on Nursey’s phone says 11:45. Dex always goes to sleep before midnight. Nursey knows this. He stares at the phone, at the numbers counting the seconds and minutes and hours(!) that they’ve sat together. _Why are you here?_ Huh.

“Hashtag misheard lyrics,” Nursey says.

Dex groans. “What.”

“It’s arise, not arrive. You were only waiting for this moment to _arise_.”

-

_You were only waiting for his moment to arise_. “What’s the difference?” Dex asked.

“Well,” Nursey said, “Paul and John wrote it in response to the Civil Rights movement in the sixties, right?”

Dex hadn’t known that, but it makes sense. “Okay.”

“So like, _arrive_ has this sense of inevitability, doesn’t it. It implies that something is on the way, and you know it, like someone visiting your house or whatever. And the movement didn’t arrive, you know, it didn’t move independently of itself. _Arise_ is more organic. Like, an opportunity arises. A phoenix rises. Rise up. And like, who is arising? Is the moment arising, or is the blackbird?”

Dex had Googled _blackbird lyrics_ while Nursey talked, so he could have the words in front of his eyes. He saw it. He never would’ve thought about it, but he saw it. “It’s poetry,” he said.

“And cooked lobsters are red,” Nursey said. “Brah, what did you _think_ music was?”

“Fuck off, you wouldn’t call Journey poetry.”

“Sure I would.” Dex waits for it. “Not _good_ poetry,” Nursey says, and Dex snorts.

“Don’t stop believin’,” he said.

“Streetlights,” Nursey said, deadpan. “People.”

Dex tried to hold the laugh in—he always did, so as not to stroke Nursey’s already continental ego—but it came out anyway.

“You’re sounding good though,” Nursey said.

“It’s still sloppy,” said Dex.

“You’ll get it,” Nursey said, easy, confident. Dex had heard that confidence before, directed at him, but never _for_ him. Not that he can remember, anyway. He felt his face and neck heat up.

“When are you back at Samwell?” Dex asked.

“The seventh,” said Nursey. “You?”

Dex had planned to get back on the eighth, but he said, “The seventh for me too,” and meant it.

“Think you can last four more days without me?” Nursey asked, and Dex could picture his stupid smarmy smile so fucking easily.

“No. I will surely wither away into dust. Oh woe is me. My strength fails me. May God have mercy on my soul.” Dex yawned in the middle, both to illustrate how unimpressed he was and because he wasn’t used to staying up this late.

“You’re always free to Skype me,” Nursey said. “Go to bed, grandpa.”

“You go to bed,” Dex said. He set his guitar aside. He was already in his boxers. He took Nursey off speaker after he got rid of his shirt and got under the covers. Frankie resettled herself between his ear and collarbone.

“Is Frankie there?” Nursey asked.

“Yeah.”

“Say hi for me.”

Dex, halfway to sleep and unprepared to deal with this ridiculousness, said, “Say hi yourself,” and tilted the phone at Frankie.

Unbelievably, Nursey said, “Hi Frankie,” with zero hesitation. Or perhaps, not so unbelievably. Dex certainly wasn’t surprised. Frankie raised her head and looked at the phone with adorable, irritable, sleepy confusion. “Happy to hear you got a good home, bro. You did a bombass job with those kittens, too. Hashtag badass, dude.” Frankie tucked her head back against Dex’s neck.

“She is not impressed,” Dex said into the phone.

“Neither were you,” Nursey said, still easy and confident.

“ _Were_?” Dex asked. He really was beat, so the rest of the words didn’t make it out of his mouth.

Nursey got it anyway. “Don’t front, you love me.”

Dex was warm and tired. Frankie curled up close to him. Nursey breathed in his ear. His window was cracked, and the late summer air made his skin feel alive, kept him from feeling suffocated. He blamed all this for how much fondness was in his voice when he said, “Nuh- _uh_ ,” like a fucking preschooler.

In his ear, Nursey chuckled. “Sweet dreams, Dexy. See you soon.”

“Bye,” Dex said. He waited a moment to see if Nursey would hang up. Dex always waited for the other person to hang up, because he didn’t want to be the asshole who cut someone off just as they thought of something else to say. Nursey didn’t hang up. It occurred to Dex that Nursey might be doing what Dex was doing, and then he felt self-conscious that Nursey was just waiting for him to go away, and he hung up.

The seventh. Dex blearily plugged his phone into its charger, double-checked that he set his alarm, and settled back. Frankie squirmed a little. Dex would be scared that he’d turn over and smother her in the night, but he knew she’d claw him if she couldn’t get out. He trusted her. He hoped, if the universe ever lined up right to make it happen, that she and Pablo would get along. He’d see Nursey on the seventh.

Dex fell asleep with a smile on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr as kit-moosebuckle. I'd link to my blog directly, but I don't know how to do that and it's midterms season, so. If you've got any ideas about where this series should go next, what parts of Year Three you'd like to see, let me know! I'm already thinking about a short NY Pride piece feat. Nursey, Spence, and Prez. Thanks for reading!


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